TDP, TRS heading for comfortable victory

The TDP-BJP combine is also doing well in the Lok Sabha elections having established lead in 12 of the 25 LS seats with the YSRC placed second with lead in seven LS seats.

Trends position: Seemandhra Assembly: TDP-BJP - 96 YSRC - 70 Lok Sabha; TDP-BJP - 12 YSRC - 7 Congress - 1 Telangana Assembly: TRS - 57 Congress - 24 TDP-BJP - 24 Lok Sabha: TRS - 11 Congress - 1 BJP-TDP - 2

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) appear to be heading for a comfortable victory in the Assembly elections in Seemandhra and Telangana respectively.

At the end of two rounds of counting, the TDP-BJP combine was comfortably placed leading in 96 of the 175 Assembly constituencies in Seemandhra, well above the the halfway mark of 88 seats required to form the government. Its nearest rival, YSR Congress led by Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, was trailing in second place leading in 70 Assembly segments in the residuary state. The Congress, expectedly, looks like it will draw a total blank.

The TDP-BJP combine is also doing well in the Lok Sabha elections having established lead in 12 of the 25 LS seats with the YSRC placed second with lead in seven LS seats.

In Telangana, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), led by K Chandrasekhar Rao, was surging ahead having established lead in 57 of the 119 Assembly seats. The TDP-BJP combine, surprisingly, is giving a tough fight to the Congress for the second spot, with the two parties fighting nech-and-neck in at 24 seats each.

The TRS is also emerging as the clear leader in Lok Sabha by taking the lead in 11 of the 17 Parliamentary seats, with the TDP-BJP combine leading in two and the Congress and MIM in one seat each.

Damodar Raja Narasimha, former deputy chief minister in the Kiran Kumar Reddy-led Congress government, the last in undivided Andhra, is trailing in the Mudhole Assembly segment. So are a couple of former ministers including D K Aruna, who have yielded ground to their TRS rivals.

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